Barriers on the Way to the South Hebron Hills Opened – for Now

Dear friends and Supporters,

A few days ago we traveled on the crossing road of Massafer Yatta, the caves dwellers area of south Mt. Hebron. After a month of total block, the Israeli army bulldozers made small breaches in the in the long earth mounds they build few weeks ago (in order to isolate the residents of the caves dwellers villages from the rest of the world).

Small and temporary as they are, these current breaches enable the Italian organization UCODEP to send its water supply to southern villages ofJinba, Mirkez and Hallwah after a long period of delay, which include also a continued rain halt in the region. Erella’s words in the post before last can give you a glimpse on the silent heroism of the caves dwellers of Massafer Yatta, who have been struggling for more than a quarter of a country against an everyday brutal oppression of the Israeli occupation forces and the settlement colonists.

Here is a short quote from that post:

Musa continues his description of the latest blocking process: “A week ago I went over to the soldier operating the bulldozer. I asked him: “Why are you blocking us?” He said, “So Palestinian workers without permits will not cross into Israel, nor terrorists.” So why not block your own area? [i.e., on the Green Line – AO] … He said, “Ask the bosses. I’m not the commander here.” “I don’t need to ask the bosses”, Musa tells us, his face very clear. “I know. They want the land without the people.”

“You see,” Musa continues, “before the Israelis, there were the Jordanians here. They did lots of bad things to people. And before them were the British, and the Turks before that. And now the Israelis. later there will be a Palestinian government. But it will fall, too. Governments fall. Governments whose intentions are not pure, don’t last.But I don’t belong to governments. I belong to the land. They will not move me from here, because I belong to the land.” Musa said this lightly, with an ease of things that are obvious and self-evident. There was not a bit of pomp in his confident voice. Only a kind of simple inner truth which he felt he could share with us.

In my mind I heard the familiar echo of occupiers and settlers and colonists who say, “We shall not be moved, for the land belongs to us.”….And suddenly, that little difference opened wide and spread itself before my heart … This was the simple knowledge of the difference between “I shall not be moved from here, for I belong to the land”, and “I will not be moved from here for the land belongs to me.”